KARACHI, May 17: Former foreign secretary Shahryar M. Khan on Friday rejected government allegations of using fraudulent means and misusing his connections to get undue benefit with regard to the Bhopal House case and declared that as a law-abiding citizen he would accept the verdict of the court.

Dismayed over such allegations, Mr Khan told a news conference at the Karachi Press Club that “I have no desire to politicize the case nor do I have any intention of violating the court’s verdict”.

The former foreign secretary made it clear that he was neither under any pressure nor in confrontation with the government but was addressing the news conference to respond to the allegations levelled against him by two government departments.

He said the act of dispossessing his family of the property in Clifton was a violation of the order of the court and read out from the order given by the then judge Shaiq Usmani. He claimed that he had complied with the requirements of the order.

With regard to the accusation of misrepresentation, he said he had submitted the sale deed and mutation of the property since 1947 to 1993 in the name of his grandfather and since 1993 in his late mother’s name. “These are public documents on the record of the KMC and I cannot change these records.”

The respondents, he pointed out, had so far not submitted their documents in the court.

He also refuted the prosecution’s claim of purchasing the property and said “let them bring documents”. He said: “It is surprising that on the one hand they claim the property was purchased by the government whereas the other version of the government described it a evacuee property in its possession since 1947.”

Mr Khan said that a three-member committee had been instituted by the government, two of them were respondents in the case.

This committee reviewed the whole case without his knowledge, said Mr Khan, adding that if he had been informed, he would have objected as two of its members were party to the case.

“I requested for hearing but it was denied. How can I accept the verdict of the committee whose two members are respondents; I oppose the conclusions of the committee,” he said.

With regard to one government department’s claim that the property in question was purchased by it, he said that the matter was in the court, let the respondents prove their contention.

He also referred to the appointment of commissioner in the case and said that after the death of his mother, he would appear before the court on May 25. A contempt application pertaining to the family’s eviction from the Bhopal House was already fixed for May 21.

Asked how he personally felt after the incident and whether he had any regrets about coming to Pakistan, Mr Shahryar Khan categorically dispelled the impression and said “we don’t have any regrets about coming to Pakistan; no, not at all. We may have been disappointed at times but this is our own country. Neither my mother nor I have any regrets. My mother came here to serve the ideals of the Quaid-i-Azam.”

Giving background of the case, he said it was filed on behalf of all the heirs of the late Nawab Hamidullah Khan of Bhopal, not just on behalf of his late mother.

The Bhopal House, he said, was the property of his grandfather Nawab Hamidullah Khan. He showed the sale deed and mutation of the property in favour of the late Nawab.

He said the property was inherited by his late mother under the Islamic law after the death of his grand father.